Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day Scones

Scones are my favorite food.  Buttery, crumbly, perfectly sweet, but not too sweet, moist dough balls of heaven.  My Sunday ritual is walking around to each corner bakery and testing a new scone.  So far the winners are from La Barcelona on Billinghurst and Charcas and Natural Deli, but the search continues.  Tonight, I decided to take measures into my own hands and dabble in the art of scone-making.  I also wanted to take advantage of my remaining Trader Joes dried cranberries and heart shaped cookie cutter I found here.  They were pretty successful, but a tad over cooked due to the distracting peanut butter, banana licuado I was enjoying.

Here's the recipe I found from the awesome blog Pinch my Salt.

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/8 cup granulated sugar - less than recipe calls for because I don't like them too sweet and like to add my own honey or jam after.
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
1/3 cup dried cranberries
finely grated zest from one small lemon (about 2 teaspoons)

Directions: Preheat over to 425 degrees.  In Argie ovens, I just turn it on and hope for the best.  Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and add butter.  Rub butter into flour with your fingers until coarse crumbs form.  Add cranberries.  Mix eggs, milk and lemon zest and add it to the butter/flour mixture.  Lightly stir to incorporate.  Place dough on floured counter top and knead lightly to form a ball.  The less kneading the fluffier the scone.  Pat dough into 1 inch thick circle.  Cut scones out with cookie cutter and cup flipped over.  Place on butter baking sheet so that scones are very close together to rise up higher.  Bake for 10-15 min until golden brown.  When you take them out I like to drizzle honey over the top.

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